Thursday, June 13, 2013

The Los Angeles Police Commission will receive a long-awaited report from LAPD
Chief Charlie Beck on Tuesday morning about L.A.'s serious hit-and-run epidemic. Judging from a copy of
that report, it looks as if Beck is more interested in repairing public
relations damage than solving a major public safety problem.

"The report is all spin to get around the elephant in the room," says Don
Rosenberg, an L.A. resident whose son was killed by an unlicensed driver and has
been keeping close tabs on the LAPD's response to the hit-and-run crisis. "They
don't have a good story on hit and runs, and tried to come up with something
else."

L.A. Weekly first exposed the controversy in the widely read 2012
cover story "L.A.'s Bloody Hit-and-Run Epidemic," which caught the
attention of L.A. City Councilman Joe Buscaino and California State Assemblyman
Mike Gatto.

In December, former Weekly staff writer Simone Wilson reported that
there "is no LAPD task force or organized city effort to address the problem,
yet the numbers are mind-boggling. About 20,000 hit-and-run crashes, from fender
benders to multiple fatalities, are recorded by the Los Angeles Police
Department each year.

"That's huge, even in a city of 3.8 million people. In the United States, 11
percent of vehicle collisions are hit-and-runs. But in Los Angeles, L.A.
Weekly has learned, an incredible 48 percent of crashes were hit-and-runs
in 2009, the most recent year for which complete statistics are available.
According to data collected by the state, some 4,000 hit-and-run crashes a year
inside L.A. city limits, including cases handled by LAPD, California Highway
Patrol and the L.A. County Sheriff, resulted in injury and/or death. Of those,
according to a federal study, about 100 pedestrians died; the number of
motorists and bicyclists who die would push that toll even higher."

In January, Councilman Buscaino asked the LAPD to come up with a report to
explain what efforts the police were taking to curtail hit and runs.

But that report, signed by Beck, focuses largely on attempting to pick apart
the Weekly's cover story, with some mention of what the
police are actually doing to combat hit and runs such as holding press
conferences and community meetings to alert the public and solicit help in
apprehending an individual.

"The councilman is saying we have too many hit and runs. What are you doing
about it?" says Rosenberg. "And Beck goes into something else and tries to
massage statistics."

Buscaino was unable to comment before the Weekly's deadline.

But Assemblyman Mike Gatto, who represents neighborhoods in L.A. and has been
pushing forward a hit-and-run law to extend the statue of
limitations for such an offense, tells the Weekly that "more needs to
be done" to solve L.A.'s hit-and-run crisis and hopes that Beck will take an
"all-hands-on-deck approach" to solve it.

Gatto's office read the LAPD report. After coming up with a questionable
statistical formula, Beck's findings state that L.A.'s hit-and-run rate was
"comparable to other metropolitan cities in the nation." Gatto says that "runs
contrary to what I hear from my constituents."